The Song of Wandering Aengus

 

One of my all-time favourite poems and so wonderfully set to music by both Donovan and The Waterboys below.  The last four lines conjure up an image that calls to something deep within, the search for the perfect place and time, and the pull of the sun and moon on the human heart.  Yeats certainly had a way of translating human longing into beautiful words.

I went out to the hazel wood,

Because a fire was in my head,

And cut and peeled a hazel wand,

And hooked a berry to a thread;

And when white moths were on the wing,

And moth-like stars were flickering out,

I dropped the berry in a stream

And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor

I went to blow the fire a-flame,

But something rustled on the floor,

And someone called me by my name:

It had become a glimmering girl

With apple blossom in her hair

Who called me by my name and ran

And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering

Through hollow lands and hilly lands,

I will find out where she has gone,

And kiss her lips and take her hands;

And walk among long dappled grass,

And pluck till time and times are done,

The silver apples of the moon,

The golden apples of the sun.

(William Butler Yeats)

Donovan's Adaptation

 The Waterboys